Matthew Holvey 📻 station-dark.com 📡

If you’ve completed your MS but are significantly over word count, just delete every 8th word. The brain is smart and can figure it out, and you cut thousands from your total.

#badwritingadvice #writingcommunity

Let’s start a game where a million people give me one dollar, and then we just stop. That would be great.

Not only do I have high levels of computer, but my *willingness* to self motivate is through the roof (glad they didn’t ask about ability to do so)

Why is this so true! You read something a hundred times, but the moment you hit [SEND] you spot six errors!

Accurate

Congrats to you and your writing assistant!

Hey, that’s pretty cool!

Nicely done!

So true

Using the wrong pen is the kind of friction I don’t need in my life.

What did you land on? Bonus points if you decided to stick with what you originally had.

Not promoting my own (fallible) work, but the hook for my serial fiction horror is:

“The heater clicked once, then died.”

It conveys failure, death, discomfort, chill, etc. all from six words. Not saying it’s great, but it has nothing to do with the plot… although it’s luring you towards the plot.

Ha!

This is perfect, thanks! I’ll check out Bookvault, that sounds like the direction I want to go. I haven’t tried Vellum, but I’ll check it out. Thanks again!

Perfect, that’s what I was thinking (and yes, I want to avoid managing inventories and shipping. Thanks!

This might be the wrong way of looking at it, but I’ve found that a good hook lies more in the tone, atmosphere, and closeness of the words than anything related to plot. Especially horror, where you want everything up close and personal so things can jump out of corners.

Stare into the void with frozen breath snd endless anxiety, right?

Good luck!

Huge accomplishment! Congrats!

I enjoy deeply plotted books with meticulously curatived narrative. I’m not certain that’s what I create myself, but I try. Those types of books are getting rarer.

Sometimes you’ve just got a lot of bad words clogging the pipe. There’s no clean way to do it except start writing all the bad stuff until is clears, then the good stuff should start flowing.

Question for self-publishing folks: I’d like to bundle my short stories into a 36K word novella and make it available as a physical novelty for purchase (I publish my stories online for free). Is POD my best option? Any recommendations?

#writingcommunity #authorsky #indieauthors

A picture of the board game Hero Quest, with heroes positioned around cozy furniture pieces.

Games like Hero Quest were my first introduction to the endless realms of magical fantasy. They shaped my youth and my passion for fiction.

Here’s a pic of my 4-yr-old playing house with my core memories. The heroes are having dinner before the bad guys come.

#writingcommunity #authorsky

Upon this soil lies a great horror; terrible, no doubt, but great nonetheless. Twelve months from now its spirit shall rise again and wreak terror upon the one who must assemble it.

“Not the attic for another year! Nooooo!”

#writingcommunity #writingprompts

Can’t go to the dentist if I can’t find my shoes. Admittedly, I haven’t looked very hard.

My writing style reflects my housekeeping. I clean as I go, grabbing things, carrying them along, depositing them and picking up others, the house incrementally clearer in my mind.

I struggle with deep work in a room. Same with words. Short stories help me here.

#5amwritersclub #writingcommunity

logo with a broadcast tower crossed by distorted waves, with STATION DARK below it.

New story posted in Station Dark, a serial fiction of the surreal Midwest.

If you like shortwave radio, small town horror, and voices in the wires, this is for you.

station-dark.com

#5amwritersclub #writingcommunity #authorsky #serialfiction #horror

What time even is it? 5am? 6am? A surreal time loop wrapped in an infinite pre-dawn twilight? Regardless, good morning! (I’m not great with time changes).

#5amwritersclub

I’m responding to #writingcommunity posts so I can avoid my word count

(but seriously, well done. That’s awesome)

That’s awesome! Congrats.